Nathan Dube

By: Nathan Dube on April 25th, 2019

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Everything You Need To Know About Augmented Reality

Packaging Materials | The Business of Packaging | Packaging Design | Packaging Psychology

In the entertainment world, virtual reality is very popular. When it comes to business, augmented reality is where it’s at. AR allows people to interact with digital media in real time without having to wear a headset. It has many potential applications in marketing, advertising, education, and engineering.

 

What Is Augmented Reality?

 

  • Augmented reality (AR) is a live view of a true real-world environment.
  • The end users view of reality is changed by digital sensory input such as voice, video or digital imagery.
  • This tech is an example of mediated reality. Mediated reality is a view of reality changed by a computer.
  • The technology works by changing someone’s perception of reality.

 

What Does Augmented Reality Have To Offer?

 

AR assists soldiers on the battlefield. It is also giving life to ghosts via packaging in the wine industry. Augmented reality may be the coolest technological step since the internet.


 19 Crimes Wine Using Augmented Reality

 

With all new technologies, concerns about their use and/or abuse arise.


Their use in military applications was a huge turnoff to dozens of Microsoft employees. Some of them felt that they had been tricked into becoming a weapons developer.


This weighed heavy on the minds of said employees. Many of them issued a formal letter of complaint with the company:

"Under the terms of the deal, the headsets, which place holographic images into the wearer’s field of vision, would be adapted to “increase lethality” by “enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy,” according to a government description of the project. Microsoft was awarded the contract in November.

 

“We are a global coalition of Microsoft workers, and we refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression,” the employee’s state in the letter, which was published on an internal message board and circulated via email to employees at the company Friday. More than 100 Microsoft employees signed their names to the letter. Microsoft employs almost 135,000 people worldwide."



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Jokes about Skynet aside, the truth remains... Augmented reality is here to stay.


When it comes to the world of packaging, you saw above what 19 crimes wine is doing and that particular application of augmented reality has been used to sell wine under the appeal of zombies as well...


Children's products like yogurt and cereal get scanned to unlock educational videos. Interactive contests, music, and media are other AR applications.

 

We are beginning to see many ways for augmented reality to be used in the packaging industry...

 

Augmented Reality Art Exhibit

 

Here is a preview of what we can expect as this technology expands from consumer marketing products to the world of fine art.


Artists Adrien M and Claire B combine art composed of paintings, beach stones, ink and other real-world physical objects with AR.


Each piece features a unique animated digital sculpture which can only be seen by utilizing a smartphone AR app.


This allows for augmented reality to be viewed by patrons of the art gallery. Here in this exhibit, you can see and feel the magic of augmented reality.

 

Augmented Reality Applications For Packaging

 

 

A Collection Of Augmented Reality Applications For Packaging


The most important development in augmented reality in packaging supplies is protective packaging.


In the video above, you can see how AR technology and protective packaging are used by the consumer. That means people's safety is enhanced by this technology.


Videos and interactive content can be fun and/or educational. Tamper evident applications of AR are impressive for what potentials they hold as the technology advances.


One of the more interesting things in the AR packaging space is the union with print advertising. In the video below, you can see info about a medicine, beverage, food, etc. in a magazine.


AR technology can lead consumers from the magazine to content such as brochures, white papers and video presentations connected to the content on the printed page.


What a time to be alive, eh?

 

 Augmented Reality Demonstration From: Stampatech

 

What Are The Limitations?

 

There are some drawbacks to augmented reality including the high cost of use. Both the consumers and companies attempting to use this technology need expensive equipment to use AR.


With the most popular smartphones on the market costing $600 or more, it's not accessible yet.


Companies like Google and Apple are pouring millions into this tech, but for smaller companies with visionary ideas that do not have the capital to see them through, well... AR is but a useless pipe dream.

 

What Does The Future Hold?

 

But hey, it’s 2019. AR technology is developing quickly while the costs associated are dropping. These things are evolving faster than ever before, which means accessibility to many is coming.

 

What may not be available to everyone today, may very well be available tomorrow. From Medium:

 

"AR has come on in leaps and bounds in the last 12 months. In the last six months alone, there’s been over 13 million downloads of ARKit apps. Then you’ve got companies like Leap Motion unveiling the North Star project; an open source AR glasses concept which can potentially be mass produced for under $100. Google is consistently adding more and more supported devices to its ARCore range with the aim of 100 million supported devices.

 

This year could be the trigger for a major technological shift. Every major tech company is building AR/MR capabilities as a major priority (Apple, Microsoft, Google). While these three companies may produce the odd dud product sometimes (Windows Vista comes to mind), I highly doubt all three of them are wrong about the direction global tech is heading."

 

With open source technological innovations in augmented reality, it may be accessible soon. You can be sure that we will see augmented reality on everything from billboards to paper cups.


One question about augmented reality is, how will this technology adapt to market saturation. Ten years from now when any business or personal brand can tap into augmented reality, will people still want to use it?


An interesting digital art project called "hyper-reality" envisions what a world saturated with AR and VR technology might be like...

 

A Simulated World of AR Saturation (Video)


In the end, we do not know if the vision above is the world we will live in.


Laws and organizations may prevent such a multicolored world of pure distraction. Limiting these modern technologies to smaller, more digestible applications may become the norm.

 

Whatever the future holds, you can be sure that you will be noticing QR codes and newer technological prompts on your packaging supplies.

 

These prompts will be inviting you to enter into educational and/or entertaining territories via augmented reality.

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About Nathan Dube

As the Digital Marketing Specialist at Industrial Packaging, I am honored to create content for such a phenomenal company and work with one of the greatest teams in the Packaging Industry. Whether creating a video, writing blog posts or generating other pieces of content and multimedia, I am always excited to help educate and inspire our prospects and clients to reach their highest potential in regards to their packaging processes and needs.